


to know you is to love you

by tooshy



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Growing Up Together, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 19:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30144114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tooshy/pseuds/tooshy
Summary: If you asked Mark where it started, he'd sayon that one train ride to Busan, or maybethe summer before college.But you're not asking Mark, because he doesn’t know the half of it and you want the full story. So, you're asking Donghyuck, and he'll tell you where it starts. He's nice like that.(or, Mark never believes Donghyuck when he tells him he's been in love with him from the moment he learned how to say his name, but—well. He has.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 15
Kudos: 146





	to know you is to love you

If you asked Mark where it started, he'd say _on that one train ride to Busan,_ or maybe _the summer before college._ But you're not asking Mark, because he doesn’t know the half of it and you want the full story. So, you're asking Donghyuck, and he'll tell you where it starts—he's nice like that.

It starts with a year and something months old Donghyuck holding a xylophone stick, and three year old Mark holding the other one, the rainbow colored instrument on the floor between them. Sitting cross-legged a few feet away, Donghyuck's mom smiles in amusement while she holds up a digital camera.

"Min-hyung," the boy drags his name out, staring at a Donghyuck who seems entirely too engrossed in hitting a long blue bar over and over again.

"Minhyung," he tries again when Donghyuck happens to glance at him, and points with a chubby finger at his own chest. “Minhyung.” 

Donghyuck blinks, and with a toothy grin points at his friend's chest, opens his mouth wide, and says, "Minnun." 

There’s a sudden chuckle, and the shaking of his mom’s shoulders is mirrored on the unstable video footage. The kids don’t seem to mind, neither of them looking away from each other or putting down their forefingers, which are pointing to the place in Mark's chest where his heart is. 

"Minhyung." 

"Miyun." 

“Minhyung.” 

“Miyun!” 

Donghyuck’s giggling and sporadic striking of the xylophone bars keep their little debate company noisewise, until he finally shouts, "Mi'hyung." 

The video ends mere seconds later, with a last frame that consists of an ecstatic Mark slapping the multicolored instrument in celebration of Donghyuck's not-quite-there-yet articulation, and a drooly-chinned, bright-eyed Donghyuck that looks at Mark like he hung the same moon he seems to be over.

That's where it starts. And Donghyuck concedes that he may not remember this random moment in time, only even knowing about it because his mom couldn't help but document his first play date with the new neighbors' kid from down the block, but somehow he's certain. It's in that awed glint in his eyes when Mark hollers and falls over, undeniable and loyal to the heart on his sleeve.

Mark never believes him when he tells him he's been in love with him from the moment he learned how to say his name, but—well. He has. 

* * *

He calls Mark that same first version of his name that’s just a consonant off for a lengthy few months, before the name slowly morphs into Minnie, and later on falls into disuse. In the present, Donghyuck only resorts to it when he wants something from Mark (namely money or forgiveness) and knows the only currency that will get him it is a guilt-tripping childhood nickname tinted in overemphasized fondness. Just like he’s doing right now.

“Minnie,” he whines. “Come on.”

"You're never stepping into this room ever again!" A pause. "And that's hyung for you."

Donghyuck sighs, resting a closed fist on the bedroom door standing tall in front of him. His best friend's name, painted in Roman alphabet on a wooden sign, hangs right above his head from a piece of jute string. He tries to crook it out of spite, but gravity brings the sign back down and perfectly centers it every time he tugs on it. Stupid Mark and his stupid self-aligning everything.

"Minnie _hyung_ ," he tries again, alternating between hoping it doesn't come out as ill-naturedly sarcastic as he means it and hoping it does. "I'm sorry."

"Say that to Jane!," comes the shout from behind the closed door. 

Donghyuck can't help rolling his eyes. Jane, the classic guitar Mark got for Christmas that he won't put down. It's cheap and nylon-stringed and _dumb,_ but Mark has been taken with it since his parents handed it to him a couple weeks ago, all shiny and sporting a red ribbon around its neck. Mark had unlaced the ribbon with utmost care (or at least more than was expected of an eleven year old), picked it up and he hasn't set it back down since. It's always Jane sitting on his lap, the vessel for Mark to play the same chord progression over and over at the expense of ignoring Donghyuck.

Donghyuck, who goes from seeing pink to red in just a few days, when the wonder he felt as he watched Mark's fingers learn to jump around the fretboard became exasperation at him refusing to do much else. All it had taken was Mark saying _he wouldn't get it because he's just a little kid_ before he left his room to go to the bathroom, and a couple minutes later he returned to his friend sitting on his carpet with a pair of scissors on one hand and Jane in the other, her strings cut in half. 

Now, two days later, Donghyuck kneels in front of the door and slides a small red and white plastic pouch underneath it, which holds a full set of new strings inside. He reminds himself of what his mom had said after Mark and him argued their lungs out and she had to come pick him up earlier than planned, when Donghyuck had still been fuming and had told her he's definitely not a little kid. As they walked up the steps to their house, his mom had grabbed his hand in hers and replied, "If you're not a little kid, then you're going to apologize and make it up to Mark, because _that_ is what big boys do."

Donghyuck musters up what he's coming to know as his willpower and straightens up before he goes on. "Give these to Jane, please? And ask her if she'll forgive me," he requests, and finds that he means most of it. 

Because, quite honestly, she's not all bad. Jane's the reason why he can lay on Mark's carpeted bedroom floor on Saturdays when he's over for lunch, with the drowsiness only a full stomach can provide, and listen to Mark give the new song he's learning a try until he gets the hang of it. Six brand new strings so Mark can tune her and play her on sleepy weekends' middays and whenever else he wishes, Donghyuck or no Donghyuck—he owes her that much.

A hand lifts the two-colored package from the floor. Some muffled rustling tells him Mark's ripped it open and taken a peek, and a few seconds later the door opens an inch. Donghyuck can see a single eye staring him down almost comically, and he bites his lip to avoid laughing and landing himself another fight. 

Mark finally pushes the door open wide, quick to point an accusatory finger in the least menacing manner Donghyuck has ever witnessed. “You can come in if you sit still while I restring Jane. Keep _quiet_.”

Donghyuck's self-control takes a much needed break, allowing his face to split into a smile. “As a fucking mouse, Markie,” he says, rejoicing in the way Mark’s eyebrows draw together and his mouth downturns.

As good as Jane may sound, it doesn’t hold a candle to the sound of Mark’s voice asking him to _please stop swearing_ and his bedroom door shutting behind Donghyuck’s back. 

* * *

His mom is the one to plant the seed, he guesses. Not that Donghyuck blames her entirely, but he’s always been a bit of a fan of finger-pointing, and even more so as an immature preadolescent. 

He's seven, knocking his feet together underneath the dinner table, watching her walk up and down the kitchen as he waits for breakfast to be served. With his dad in the bathroom and his sister still asleep, she brings up his first day of first grade tomorrow, trying to stir up some excitement in her crusty-eyed son. 

"You'll probably make lots of new friends," she assures, setting down everyone's spoon and chopsticks. 

Still sleep-addled, Donghyuck watches his distorted reflection on the surface of the silverware in front of him as he answers. "That's okay," he shrugs, not looking too worried. "I already have Mark."

His mom places his orange juice on the table, and then takes a seat next to him. "You do," she smiles, and Donghyuck instantly knows where this is going. That is her _you're not getting what you want_ face, though he doesn't know exactly what it is he isn't getting _._ "But Mark can't be around all the time, honey. He has his own stuff to do, too. It's good to have other friends to spend time with."

Donghyuck does make new friends. A few weeks after that Sunday morning, he finds himself glued to Jeno and Jaemin's side; a year later, helping out the new foreign student with his timetable lands him the closest non-Mark friend he's made so far, Renjun fitting in quite seamlessly in their small group. That also means Mark has made his own non-Donghyuck friends, and a good number of them at that. 

Throughout it all, the small gap between their ages and attending different grades in different schools tugs at them in opposite directions, but they never stray too far from each other. They can go weeks without hanging out, but never more than a day without a text (five consecutive pictures of Mark's cat from slightly different angles, a thread of texts asking Donghyuck for his mom's kimchi jjigae recipe, another one begging Mark to help him out with Calc, scattered variations of _can i go over?_ and _coming over_ or _omw_ from either of them). Most of the time they do spend together they don't talk about the important things (Donghyuck doesn't bring up how his sister's been ignoring him since their dad said she should be more like him; he finds out Mark's parents are on the brink of divorce through his friend's brother; life goes on), but when Donghyuck knocks on his bedroom window after hours, Mark knows to let him in and make home in one half of his bed with no questions asked, the same way Donghyuck will suggest they rewatch The Parent Trap like it's his favorite movie and not Mark's, who's looking worn and faded until the Disney intro plays and the tension on his shoulders starts to lessen. 

And, most recently, Mark tends to be too busy with his friends to make time for Donghyuck. The _but_ for that one is yet to be introduced, Donghyuck thinks, reminiscing about that six year old conversation with his mom while he licks a lonely trail of melted ice cream from the side of his hand. He's eying a fidgety Mark sitting beside him on the curb, his own cone barely touched. It’ll start dripping down the sides any minute now, and though Donghyuck would love to sit and watch him get mint choco all over his pants just to see his peeved face, he knows they’re not here only for ice cream. 

He bites the edge of his half empty waffle cone, and then decides to bite the bullet as well. "What is it?"

"Hmm?" Mark looks up from where his fingers are playing with his jacket's zipper, hum in the shape of a question, and Donghyuck regains some semblance of inner peace when Mark’s face scrunches up in disgust at his open-mouth chewing. 

"Something's up." He raises his outstretched leg to lightly push at Mark's folded knee, high on the feeling of getting a rise out of him. "Come on, out with it."

Mark scoffs, kicking Donghyuck back with far less vigour. "Why'd you think anything's up?"

Mark’s ice cream starts dripping, Donghyuck’s hold breaks the side of his cone and covers half of his hand with what was left of his mango flavored treat; both of them remain unaware as they scuff their sneakers together, trying to step on each other’s foot. 

"Let's see,” Donghyuck starts after he successfully traps Mark’s right shoe beneath his own. “You offered to take me out for ice cream out of nowhere," he raises what's left of the second cone he's had in the last hour with his smeared hand, "and you didn't nag about how I'm gonna get a stomachache or whatever when I told you I wanted another one. Also, you ditched your friends to hang out with me for the first time in, like, months."

Mark fits the dictionary definition of irritation down to a T as he tries to shake off his friend’s foot, giving up after a bit of struggling—quite quickly to Donghyuck’s taste—and at last taking a bite of his ice cream. "I didn't _ditch_ them," is all he says, begrudgingly so.

Donghyuck tuts, leaning more of his weight on his leg resting over Mark’s toes. "I saw Jaehyun's text,” he tells him. For once, he has an explanation for being in someone else’s business that doesn’t involve him snooping around: Mark handed him his phone and wallet for safekeeping when he went back inside the ice cream parlor to get Donghyuck another cone, and when he checked the lockscreen to see the time Jaehyun’s text preview happened to be right there, starting with “ohh no biggie have fun with that little devil!” (Donghyuck is the little devil in question. Which, you know, _fair_.) 

Surprisingly, Mark doesn’t even ask. He’s looking down at their feet, one dirt-stained shoe stepping on another, as if he’ll be able to find words or courage in a scuff mark. 

Mark is obviously trying to tell him something, and Donghyuck recalls a hand squeezing his and a voice telling him to prove he's not a kid. Well into his teens and on the edge of fourteen, Donghyuck is a little lost on why he’s still so keen on making it known that he's not a child anymore. Why it drives him up the wall when he runs into one of Mark’s friends and they ruffle his hair, even if it’s filled with affection, or why he can feel his blood boiling when his best friend tells him to _quit being a baby,_ even if it’s void of malice. 

He can be as mature as the circumstances need him to be—he can lay off the teasing and lend an ear when it’s needed. So he leans his shin to the side to knock their knees together, because he’s grown enough to know when to offer a bit of comfort, and waits patiently for Mark to speak up, because licking his crushed-ice-cream-holding hand clean would probably ruin the moment. 

He expects about anything other than Mark clearing his throat and saying, "You know how I said I'd like to study abroad?"

Donghyuck nods, clueless about why he’s bringing it up. He's pictured it in his head before—Mark doing some exchange program in university, going away for a semester and bringing him back little souvenirs from abroad. His mind dares daydream for a second, draws him a picture of an older Mark, eye-catching element multiplied, changed judgment and body angles, confident in a different way he is now, and Donghyuck puts a halt to it before he gets too carried away.

"Well, I, it's not for sure yet, like, it's just a possibility, but I, uh," the corners of Donghyuck's mouth slightly quirk up as Mark stammers, a teasing remark on the cusp of being said, until Mark finishes his sentence. "I'm probably going away next year and, you know, finishing high school in Canada." He nods to himself, stretching out his legs in front of him into the empty one-way street. Donghyuck's left leg, slowly going limper by the second, sees itself pushed forwards with the movement and ends up pressed up against Mark from thigh to ankle. "That's where I'm going. Probably. Toronto."

Mark busies himself with a bite of his ice cream, still avoiding looking at Donghyuck. If he did, he'd see his friend wide-eyed, mango ice cream plastered around his parted mouth and dripping down his fingers, silent for once not out of choice. He doesn't, so he goes on. "That's where my parents are from, you know? We moved here when I was just a baby but I would, I don't know, I'd really wanna get to know it. My hometown, I mean. It's just—yeah, I don't know. I really wanna do this." 

Donghyuck rebuilds his mental image of a grown up Mark, back from a four month long stay abroad, only change about him being a slight tan and the need of a haircut, hugging him hello and talking a mile a minute about some mindless culture shock thing and reacting with a laugh to whatever Donghyuck replies with. Now it's a grown up Mark, coming back for the holidays after a whole year away, suddenly taller and fuller, seeing Donghyuck only a full week after he's arrived because his parents invited Mark’s family over for dinner, and as all the grown ups chat he'll glance at Donghyuck over the rim of his glass and give him a courteous smile, like he's someone he used to know. Older, charming, stranger Mark who isn't used to being called Minnie by anyone anymore and keeps Jane inside her old case in his parents' clutter room. 

Mark nudges his leg, frowning at the lack of reaction. "Hyuck?"

His arduously gathered maturity starts to disperse, blood growing hot under his skin the more he thinks about it. 

"You're _probably_ leaving," he repeats Mark's words before shaking his head, cheeks red and smile bitter. "Bullshit. You're either leaving or you're not."

Mark sighs, expression tinted with resignment, and reaches out with one hand to give his forearm what tries to be a soothing squeeze. "Come on, dude, I'm—"

"Are you leaving or not?" Donghyuck shakes his grip off, agitation blurring it all around the edges. "If you can't tell me then don't fucking tell me at all."

Mark looks ready to argue back, but Donghyuck is faster: he has already dropped the ruined cone he’s had in his hold for the last ten minutes on the ground, and with the same sticky hand he's fishing out a couple bills out of Mark's wallet, tossing it back to his lap and getting on his feet the next second. "Oh, and you're _probably_ getting me another ice cream," he snarls, stomping his way to the ice cream shop. 

Mark comes to him the next day after school is over, standing by Donghyuck’s bedroom door and holding Jane by the neck. Having seen him walking down the road through his window before Mark rang the bell and his sister let him in, Donghyuck’s had four and a half minutes to strike and perfect the most unbothered possible pose, which ends up being him sitting on his bed with arms crossed and a book he hasn’t picked up since summer break laying on his lap, spine up. 

When his friend takes a look at him, he fights a losing battle against a smile and gestures to Donghyuck’s face with a barely repressed laugh. “Could have fooled me. You forgot your glasses.” 

Donghyuck blindly picks them up from his bedside table and puts them on, staring at him from behind round wire rimmed glasses defiantly. The faint perk of Mark's face dims down with a grimace, and Donghyuck only feels slightly guilty.

All his friends had to say that morning during lunch when he told them Mark’s news was _that’s so fucking cool_ (Jaemin), _yeah, dude, living abroad sounds dope, wish I could do that_ (Jeno) and _I hate rich people_ (Renjun). Donghyuck had let the conversation topic deviate after little to no debate, blinking at his friends' nonchalance. Though they weren’t exactly close with Mark, they definitely knew him, an inevitability of being friends with Donghyuck. Should that have been how he reacted, too? Should he have just clapped him on the back and gone back to eating his ice cream? Donghyuck doesn’t think it could be that easy. 

_I really wanna do this_ , Mark had said. Perhaps it's as easy as that, as Mark wanting it and Donghyuck being powerless to change it and sensible enough to not want to in the first place. Then again, perhaps it’s not.

So he knows he’s being petulant even when he’s the one in the wrong, but if acting grown means his best friend thinks him fit and ready to get left behind, then he’ll be the biggest loose cannon of a kid he can. 

Mark sits across from him, resting Jane against the side of his bed, and this time he doesn't struggle for words before he says, "I'm leaving."

It sounds definite, voice like a pen that's signed a contract—quick, sharp, a blick-and-you'll-miss it moment of noisy rustling before it leaves in its wake a pledge it can't part from. 

Here's Donghyuck's second chance to show contentment, to flash Mark a smile and build up his eagerness to leave the only place he's ever known. He can't.

"It's not until next year," Mark adds, his overly active hands already accompanying his words, "and I still need to get my student permit and everything, but yeah. I'm coming back on summer break and stuff, and it's only for two years."

Donghyuck watches him duck his head down and begin to pick on a loose thread of the bedspread. There's expectancy, there's patience, but there's no enthusiasm in any part of Mark, and the guilt at last starts to win over his pettiness. 

This probably isn't how Mark's going to tell his other friends about it, with his head down and bordering on ashamed, and Donghyuck is no example of how they're likely going to react, with a challenging stare and uncooperative remarks. He still doesn't think it could be that easy, but maybe it should be, and the only reason it isn't is because he needs Mark. He's dependent on him in a way none of his other friends are, one that has Donghyuck on the warpath over the thought of a Mark-shaped hole in his life, and one that wishes for him to never see Donghyuck as a child, a little brother to care for, because he yearns for so much more.

Frowning at the floor like it's inexplicably to blame for the tension in the air, he tries to speak up, but all that ends up coming out is an unintelligible string of words.

Mark looks back up at him when he starts mumbling, and a smile grows bit by bit along with his amusement. And because Mark has been trained since age three to sense what goes on inside Donghyuck's head, he simply reaches one hand out to ruffle his hair and says, "I know, dude. It's fine."

Donghyuck's mad he can't apologize. He's mad _Mark's_ not apologizing, even if he doesn't quite know what for—all he knows is someone is to blame. 

As Donghyuck's fight-or-flight opts for putting out the fire instead of fueling it, he wordlessly picks Jane up and hands it over to its owner. For a second time in a row, Mark looks like he has something left to say, but Donghyuck is already flat on his back, eyes on his bedroom ceiling and humming a song he knows Mark knows the chords to.

One, two, five beats, and finally the first strum.

* * *

He’s absolutely certain it starts with a pair of toddlers saying a name over and over. But if you insisted on the technicality that Donghyuck was a baby through and through and he couldn't have been head over heels in love before he even knew how to recite the alphabet, then Mark would still be wrong. Because then it would start with Donghyuck answering the doorbell and a pile of bloody cotton balls.

As he pulls the door open, the only one home on a late Tuesday afternoon, he's expecting it to be one of the following people:

  * The Gmarket delivery guy with the Nintendo Switch he got himself for his upcoming seventeenth birthday.
  * His mom back from running some errands who probably forgot her keys.
  * No, seriously. Please let it be his Nintendo Switch.



Instead, he finds brown hair and baggy clothes and slightly too big rings on all the wrong fingers, a frown on a face that used to light up whenever Donghyuck was around. His childhood friend and overseas ghostee stands on his porch.

In the following three seconds, his thoughts range from _what is he doing here? Why didn't he tell me he was coming back?_ to _oh, right_ and finally settling on _fuck_.

Those three seconds are enough for Mark to take in his daze and let out a huff, reeking annoyance. "I figured if you wouldn't pick up the phone, you would at least answer the door," he says roughly, arms crossed.

The boy in question continues to stare, absently thinking that maybe he's finally gone insane and he's actively hallucinating, and it's only when Mark's frown impossibly deepens and he seems about to step past him and into the house that Donghyuck snaps out of it. His knee-jerk reaction is to slam the door shut, and not a moment later there's a thump, a loud cry, and the record for the most cursing Donghyuck's ever heard stringed along in one sentence. The door's black painted wood is the only thing in his line of vision as the doorbell starts to ring incessantly once again, and Mark urges him out with anything but kindness. 

With the same automatism that made him shut the door in his face before, he throws it back open, and there's the same brown hair and baggy clothes and misplaced rings ( _Definitely not a hallucination, then_ ), but now he's also tilting his head backwards while a hand pinches the bridge of his nose, and from where Donghyuck stands he can see a single drop of red stop its trail just over his top lip. 

He's stunned for a second too long, eyes flitting about. Mark's gold band around his pinky glinting in the sun, his hoodie string that’s frayed at the end, the minute speck of blood on the welcome mat, repeat.

"You walked into the door," he states the obvious, too dumbfounded to come up with much else. Mark looks like he's biting his tongue not to retort, and Donghyuck feels as if they switched personalities without him realizing it.

That thought is only further attested for when Mark shoulders past him, making his way into the living room. Donghyuck watches him pull open a drawer from the end table next to the couch with his head still tilted back, blindly feeling around for what passes as his family's first aid kit (an antique sewing box that used to be his grandma's, and has since been filled with gauze rolls and pain meds). The sight is enough to get him moving again, pushing a craned-neck Mark towards the couch until the back of his knees meet the edge of the cushions and they buckle on their own for his butt to drop down on it. 

"Tip your head forwards," he instructs, turning back to the open drawer.

"I'm pretty sure it's backwards," Mark grumbles, out of sight as the timber box is unlatched and a couple pieces of cotton are picked up.

Putting the makeshift medkit away, Donghyuck takes a seat next to him. "If you wanna choke on your blood, sure," he can't help but bite back, even when he can't get himself to look him in the eye. 

It's quiet as he hands Mark a couple cotton balls, who quickly takes one to his nose and presses it against his nostrils. A moment later, Mark lowers his head as told, and Donghyuck's eyes jump around once again when he tries to hold his gaze. The slightly swollen bridge of Mark's nose, his nails cut too short, the line of blood that divides his chin in perfect halves, repeat. 

"It's not broken, right?" Donghyuck asks, voice muted while the white cloud of cotton soaks up red. Mark shakes his head, never looking away.

"Don't think so," he replies, muffled but just as hushed, and then adds, "Sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out."

There's something that doesn't sit well with Donghyuck, Mark asking for forgiveness with a trickle of blood down his face and unanswered messages from months on end. Bringing the leftover cotton he's holding up to Mark's chin, he dabs at it with all the care his shaking fingers can provide, and decides to stare at the mole on Mark's jaw when he says, "I should have reached out."

He would hold Mark's reaction against him—an eyebrow rise and a "you think?"—if Donghyuck didn't already know there was nothing to say that wouldn’t sound bitter.

He leaves behind only a faint smudge of blood once he's done, just as Mark replaces the piece of cotton with a new one, and tries to give him the explanation he owes him. "It's just—You were doing great, you know? And I didn't…"

 _I didn't fit in your life anymore_ , he thinks. Because Mark is a people-magnet no matter what side of the world he's in, time wasn't needed for him to make himself home and find somewhere to belong. It wore Donghyuck down slowly but surely; picking up the phone and having to remind Mark that he was talking in English _again_ , hearing him name people Donghyuck could only put a face to after lurking through Mark's Instagram following, being out of touch with half of what was going on in his life. Jealousy met longing, and Donghyuck found himself swimming crosscurrent against different time zones and sharing the one person he wanted all to himself with the rest of the world. Seeing a text from Mark come in and thinking _I'll reply later_ turned into quickly swiping away any lost calls or message notifications as soon as they popped up, swept away by the promise that "out of sight, out of mind" held.

Donghyuck goes through the list of _I didn't_ s he could choose from: _I didn't want you to have to make room for me. I didn’t think you were coming back, and I didn't know you still cared, and I didn’t want to make it more difficult than it had to be._

And maybe it's true that some things never really change, because Mark is still Mark, with his mind reading and whatnot. Donghyuck can't find any other explanation as to why his friend would pull a wry smile and admit, "I didn't either."

He wishes he could read minds, too, because he's a bit lost on what Mark failed to do. Donghyuck is the one who closed the door on him and kept him in the dark—and then literally closed the door on him and caked him in blood. Perhaps there's a blind spot to Mark's intentions, and he has his own set of _I didn'ts_ that Donghyuck can all but guess.

"I missed you," Mark tacks on. Donghyuck breaks at that and meets his eyes, only to wish a second later that he hadn't. It's too tender, overloaded with warmth, making him ache in the most contradictory way.

"Me too," Donghyuck admits despite himself. His gaze trails back to Mark's mole when he sees his lips part, a sign he's a moment away from speaking.

"You had me worried." Mark accompanies his words with a squeeze to one of Donghyuck's hands lying on his lap, who suddenly wishes he'd go back to the fuming version that had been standing outside his front door. "You have to talk to me. No matter how shitty or heartbreaking or humiliating whatever you have to say is, okay? Never stop talking to me again."

The pleading edge to Mark's words doesn't help Donghyuck's lightheadedness. Mark is, undoubtedly, still Mark: brown hair and loose-fitting clothes and rings on all the wrong fingers, still reading his mind and lighting up around him, but now also unabashedly caring in a way he hadn't been when they were kids. 

Mark lowers the hand held up to his nose, seemingly no longer bleeding. Donghyuck sees the pads of his fingers tainted red, thinks he'd like to kiss the color off, and then sets the idea aside with a blink. 

"When you knocked I thought you were my mom. Or my new Switch coming in the mail," he blurts out, seeking a lighter talk before they fully delve into a heart-to-heart that ends with his own lying all over the place.

Mark sighs, and in the action he deflates until he's slid down the couch far enough that half his ass sits in the air. "You can borrow mine if you want."

Donghyuck sees the opportunity and takes it. "Your mom?"

Tossing one of the blood soaked cotton balls he's holding at him, Mark manages the first genuine smile since he walked into the house. "My Switch, dumbass."

That weekend, after what Donghyuck has named Nosebleed Tuesday and Manly Heartfelt Talk Friday, he takes a peek at Mark's Animal Crossing before switching accounts and finds that, for someone who barely uses it anymore, he has a five star island and four hundred and seventy eight hours of gameplay. Donghyuck keeps quiet and tries to return it once Mark makes to head back home, but he turns him down with a shake of his hand and says once again that _you can keep it until you get yours, I haven't touched it in weeks._

He's lying through his teeth, and fuck if Donghyuck isn't in love with him by now.

* * *

Donghyuck has to give it to him. Perhaps it does all start the summer before college. Or at least it does for Mark—he had no clue what went through baby Donghyuck’s mind the first time he absolutely butchered his name’s pronunciation (and maybe Donghyuck doesn’t either, but he’s seen the video, and it’s been established that he just _knows)_ , or how he made his world spin the Tuesday he came back. Still, he'd get the specifics wrong: he'll tell you it started with a playlist and a trip to the beach. Donghyuck knows, however, that it doesn't start with something, but with someone.

"She’s so nice, Jun," Donghyuck groans. He puts his phone between his cheek and shoulder as he scans the canned fruit aisle for a third time. Where the hell are the sliced peaches? "She makes killer brownies and has, like, the best laugh I've ever heard."

On the other side of the line, the ceaseless noise of running water and plates clashing together is interrupted by Renjun sighing, already sounding irked forty seconds into the call. "Brownies and a great laugh. She's got you beat."

His sister walks up to the aisle he’s in, her eyes fixed on their mom’s grocery list that she’s got in one hand, the other one holding a shopping basket. She surveys the shelves in front of them before squatting down and reaching for two cans of peaches, giving Donghyuck a boastful smile. He sticks his tongue out at her retreating back. 

Facing a sea of red, green and yellow cans, he swallows hard, steadily growing tense. "Do you think he knows? Do you think he knows and he introduced me to her just to," he shrugs, “to let me down gently?” 

The faucet audibly stops running and Donghyuck hears the sound of presumably dry dishes being stacked, Renjun’s voice all the while unwavering. “He introduced you to her because you’re friends and they’re dating. Why are you overthinking it?”

It feels fairly pathetic, to have his eyes well up over Mark Lee for the first time in a grocery store amongst retirees and stay-at-home moms, on the verge of tears just because his best friend went ahead and got himself a girlfriend. 

Donghyuck grabs his phone and holds it up to his ear with his hand once more, adjusting his face mask higher up his face and wishing he could drown in polyester. “But do you think he knows?,” he insists.

It’s been gnawing at him for weeks, since the night Mark stayed over after too many hours of Super Mario and too much thai food. Donghyuck's bed quit being big enough for both of them years ago, so they’re sprawled over his bedroom's carpeted floor with Donghyuck's big Totoro plush working as one shared pillow. Because his lamp is all the way on his bedside table, the only source of light in the room is a glow-in-the-dark star stuck to his ceiling that's missing one point. 

He's contemplating the month and a half there's left before he begins senior year and Mark starts university, and the weekend getaway they have planned with their friends for the week before it, when Mark disturbs the silence. 

"Do you ever think about how you're not you to everyone else?"

Hands interlaced over his stomach, Donghyuck shimmies backwards until he can turn to face Mark's side profile. In the dark, it's hard to make out anything other than the fact that he's staring up at the ceiling. "What do you mean?"

Mark stays quiet for a moment, and then opens his mouth to illustrate his point. "Imagine having the shittiest day ever."

Donghyuck hums, imitating Mark and looking at the ceiling alongside him. "How shitty are we talking?"

"I just said shittiest. The most shitty. It's a superlative—"

"So I drop my toothbrush in the toilet and my cat dies and I forget to save my two thousand word essay."

Even if he can't see him, he can sense Mark breaking into a smile beside him. "Yeah, so after all that, you take the train to come back home and on your way out you bump into a woman, but you're so deep in thought that you don't stop to say sorry and just keep on walking. What do you guess she's gonna think of you?"

"That I'm a rude little shit?"

Mark's grin grows wider. "Probably. And it's like, you're always gonna be just that to that one woman. She's gonna think of you as some random mannerless teenager, and she'll probably have forgotten what your face looks like in the next twenty minutes. She doesn't know that you were mourning your cat and your toothbrush and your essay. You crossed her path for one moment, and who you were in that one moment defined the version of you she's gonna carry around for however long you remain on her mind."

Donghyuck makes a low sound with lips pursed, becoming pensive. Try as he might, even if just to humor Mark, he can't really see where he's coming from. When he shrugs, his shoulder bumps into Mark's, causing their arms to press together all the way down to their wrists. "Fine by me, she can think whatever she wants. I know who I am."

Mark turns to him, and Donghyuck decides to mirror him once more. He thinks of Mark's bloody nose from weeks ago, of leaning in to clean up his chin and the underside of his bottom lip. Now, as Mark's mouth forms an unfading smile, he wants nothing more than to do it all over again.

"Because you're you to you," he says, wrongly assuming Donghyuck is still following his train of thought. "And I know you're you, too. It's weird to think I can't unknow you, and I won't ever get to bump into you and choose who I think you are." He giggles in that silly-sounding way Donghyuck will forever be secretly infatuated with, and reaches forward with the hand that laid bare against his friend's to brush the hair off Donghyuck's forehead. "I know all this random shit about you." 

Donghyuck's Adam's apple bobs, his eyes trying to discern what Mark's face looks like now behind the black hues of the dark. A thought he’s unprepared for pops up out of the blue: _he knows._ His voice feels as frail as a tendril when he croaks out an encouraging "yeah?".

Mark nods, launching into an inventory of Donghyuck trivia with no delay as if it was asked of him. "Your favorite color is red. All your socks have holes in them. There's a mole inside your belly button. You add stupid amounts of vanilla essence any time you bake even if it's not in the recipe. You never learned how to spell handkerchief. Or bourgeois. Pretty sure you never pronounce archive right, either." He laughs when Donghyuck smacks his chest, and the hand on his hair travels further up as it lightly scratches his scalp and curls locks around its fingers. "You love rollercoasters but the ferris wheel terrifies you for some reason. If it were up to you, you'd name every single dog ever Nemo. You're always cracking your knuckles and your wrist makes a funny noise when you rotate it. I'm like, genuinely worried about that one, though."

There’s an easiness to the loaded moment, something that lets Donghyuck know that they can do this, whatever it is, and it will remain tacit when daylight comes around. The copper tinted blackness engulfing them swears this talk and Mark’s hand in his hair to absolute secrecy. Donghyuck isn't sure how he feels about it, and he absently tries to pinpoint the last time he knew for certain how he felt about anything Mark did. 

But then he remembers what they had been talking about before Mark opened his mouth ten minutes ago, when they were finishing up their red curry and he mentioned the date he went on with that one girl Yukhei set him up with went well. _Jihyun_ , he recalls the way Mark said her name out loud, and suddenly he doesn't want any bit of this anymore.

Keeping his cool, he smirks back at Mark, and tries not to imagine what Kang Jihyun might look like when she grins at Mark too. "So if I ever bump into you in the street, you're gonna think _oh, this shithead can't spell_?"

Against Donghyuck's best try to pull a laugh out of him, Mark's words sound overly soft when he says, “Yeah, something along those lines.” The smile gracing his face makes Donghyuck want, and for the second time he files away the memory of Mark's bloody nose and him leaning in, along with the mental picture of what Mark would look like saying _I know_ and _I’m sorry,_ or _I only love you like a brother_.

Looking up, Donghyuck lazily points at the four-ended glowing star on his ceiling. "I wonder when it lost that piece," he ponders, and there’s too many possible meanings for Donghyuck to pick which one he’s implying. 

"It didn't. I climbed on top of your bed and stuck gum on it years ago," Mark admits, finally laughing once again when Donghyuck curses him out.

_i’m at the checkout line get ur ass over here_

Donghyuck brings his phone back up to his ear after reading his sister’s text, only catching the last of what Renjun said. “Sorry, what? Didn’t get that.”

Sensing Renjun’s patience thinning out, he hears him exhale for the nth time and repeat himself. “I think you know as much as Mark does. If you’re still at the grocery store, I’m out of gummies.”

Well, that’s no help, whatever that means. He walks down to the candy aisle, grabbing a chocolate bar for himself as he asks, “You want the little cherries or the sour ones?” 

“Both. Thanks, but not really, ‘cause you owed me like two thousand won. Consider your debt settled. See you on Sunday.”

Renjun hangs up. His sister double texts him.

_hurry up!!!_

Donghyuck thinks he really should. 

(A week after that, Mark gets dumped. Donghyuck will swear to anyone who asks that he had nothing to do with it—absolutely zero law of attraction was applied from his end. 

It barely counts as a serious relationship, but it was still Mark’s first, so Donghyuck takes his chance when he notices him sitting alone underneath the park’s monkey bars, the rest of Mark’s friends playing hopscotch in the dark of the night with the chalk drawn squares a child most likely crafted earlier that day. Donghyuck sits down beside him, and watches alongside him in silence as Jungwoo loses his balance and falls on his butt before speaking up.

“Sorry, Minnie. I know you really liked her,” he says, and means it. Jihyun made the best pastries and was always laughing her heart out and Mark seemed to enjoy it all. He was even getting used to seeing her around, even if the number of times they met up were few and far between. 

To his surprise, Mark moves his shoulders up and down and juts his lower lip out, like a kid who’s clueless about why he should feel sorry. “Yeah, she was great. Pity.” 

For a moment, Donghyuck considers maybe Mark just doesn’t want to appear vulnerable and lay his heart out, admit how deep in he was in such a sort time and risk shedding a tear or five, but when he looks him over, Mark genuinely seems fine, almost like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Overtaking Donghyuck’s chance to say anything else, Mark raises his hand and points to the other side of the park. “I’ll race you to the swings.”

“Mark—”

“Last one treats everyone to pizza,” he adds louder, catching his friends’ attention, their shouting forcing Donghyuck to get on his feet and sprint. 

Later, as everyone presses their faces to the Pizza Hut windows to pick toppings, Donghyuck’s attention drifts to Mark standing behind them with crossed arms, sees the mud stains on his jeans from when he tripped on thin air and his fall gave Donghyuck the needed second to win. Their eyes meet, and he remembers grabbing onto one of the swing’s chains, beaming, and looking at Mark laid out on the grass just to see him wink at him complicitly. Mark’s lips quirk up as he holds Donghyuck’s gaze, and Donghyuck smiles back thinking _he knows_ , but also, _I know, too_.)

* * *

Here’s Mark’s over-simplistic version of how it starts:

“Why is this the third Justin Bieber song in a row? Your playlists suck.”

Donghyuck grabs Mark’s phone from his hand, exiting out of his open Kakaotalk chat with his mom, and goes to his music app. While Eenie Meenie continues playing in one ear through their shared earphones, the other hears the grunt of protest Mark makes and the voices of their friends chatting on the train seats behind them and in front of them. There’s fifty minutes left until they arrive in Busan, and after that it’s three days for him to get as much sun on his skin and sand on his shoes as possible before they have to go back home, with less than a week left for school to start one last time. For now, he centres his attention on listening to something that’s not on the current Hot 100 chart. 

“What are you doing?” Mark whines, but doesn’t make a move to try and get his phone back. He leans over the handrest separating their seats to peek at his screen.

Donghyuck hums as a response, typing in song names and tapping the _add_ button, hand-picking some and then going through the app’s recommendations, choosing the ones he knows and thinks Mark would like. A minute later, he hits play on a twenty-one track long playlist named _for minnie_ followed by, precisely, six yellow heart emojis, and throws the phone back to its owner's lap. Mark picks it up and peers at it like he's been handed a ticking time bomb.

"There you go, an actually good playlist. You're welcome," Donghyuck smiles, but Mark's eyes don't part from the screen. He sees him scroll down and back up, finger landing between the third and fourth heart. Mark stares at it for a long moment before he looks up, now with a frown roughing up his face. 

"My playlists don't suck," he objects belatedly, the voice break that cuts in on the middle of the sentence ruining his aim of trying to sound offended. "And you have to stop calling me Minnie." 

The laugh that has been bubbling up inside of Donghyuck finally bursts out, making him throw his head back and accidentally pull on the cord of Mark’s earbuds.

"Of course, my little Belieber," Donghyuck mocks him, ruffling his hair. Chuckling still, he seizes his friend’s phone once more and reopens Mark's chat with his mom, only to immediately hand it over. “Finish texting your mom and add an I love you at the end. I heard her the other day telling your brother off because neither of you ever say it back.” 

A nickname he’s been using since the dawn of time and six yellow hearts. Donghyuck refuses to believe that’s all it had taken for it to click in Mark’s head: it’s no fun, there’s no way Mark is that emotionally intelligent, and if it was true he’d never stop wondering why he didn’t just make him a dumb Spotify playlist years ago.

* * *

It’s not until the second day in Busan that Donghyuck realizes Mark brought Jane.

He’d seen the case amongst their luggage; he had been the one to carry it from the train station to their hostel and, even more, the one to beg Mark to bring his guitar along. However, all the while, he thought he had been dealing with Mery.

Mery, a steel-stringed matte black acoustic, had quickly taken Jane's spot once Mark's dad had transferred him the money for his birthday present when he still was living abroad. Its wood isn't shiny, it didn't come with any ribbon tied around her, and it never stops being weird for Donghyuck to see her sitting on Mark's lap.

He's nine, and Mark shows him how to play a D chord, handing his guitar over to someone else for the first time since he got it as Donghyuck’s rigid fingers attempt to hold the right strings down against the right frets and strum. Mark’s smile once he hears the notes’ shaky sound is so stupid looking that Donghyuck has to force himself to avert his eyes back to the fretboard. 

He starts taking piano lessons at twelve, and when he keeps getting the same part of House of the Rising Sun wrong mid-piece, Mark looks up the tablature and plays along on his guitar with him. He gets it down in a couple hours, and then they play together for a couple more just because.

He’s sixteen, and Donghyuck pretends not to notice Mark seeking him out any chance he can, missed calls and texts piling up more often than not. They aren’t exactly in the best of terms; still, when Donghyuck video calls after five days of radio silence, four a.m for him and three p.m for Mark, and asks his best friend to play something for him with his voice hoarse and dark circles gone purple, Mark picks his guitar up without a word and the first chords to that one song from the Tarzan soundtrack Donghyuck loves resound in the quiet of both of their rooms.

In all of those memories, every single time, it’s Jane he pictures. Mery has yet to quit feeling foreign, both on the eyes and to the touch, even after all this time. Jane may be cheaper and older, but Donghyuck is sure her sound is sweeter than Mery’s. Whether that is because she’s classic and Mery’s acoustic, or because nostalgia makes its way into him and crams his every sense whenever he sees Mark pick up a guitar, he doesn’t know. 

So when Donghyuck is tying his shoelaces amidst the chaos of six other teenage boys getting ready to go to the beach and he hears Jeno say _I thought you were bringing your black guitar?_ , he can’t stop himself from looking up with the quickness of a reflex to ratify that Mark is, indeed, pulling Jane out of the case. Nobody pays any mind to the generic excuse Mark gives; only Renjun, who at this point is an unwilling extension of Donghyuck’s consciousness, gazes his way while they're leaving the room and sucks his lips in to hide a secretive smile that's bordering on teasing. 

Hours after, he watches their friends stand up and shake the sand off their shorts and jeans, bidding Donghyuck and Mark goodbye until later, dodging people to make their way out of the beach and get to the DJ set Jaemin roped everyone into attending on time. Donghyuck’s eyes stray towards the massive clouds of smoke coming from behind the crowd standing a good number of feet away. Even from this far away, sitting down on the sand and with the faint remnants of sunlight, he can catch glimpses of the huge bonfire that’s still burning in the middle of the beach. 

This was, quite honestly, the bit he’d been looking forward to the most out of this entire trip since he had heard about it. They had stood around the vast circle of twigs and straw as it was set on fire, they’d retreated to the back of the slowly growing mass of people after a while and listened to Mark play song after song while they laid on the seaside and ran into the water, and then, naturally, they had gotten bored of lounging around and decided to go look for the next best thing to do—everyone except Donghyuck, who had waved his friends off, too loosened up to try to match their enthusiasm for once, and Mark, who had raised a hand right after and claimed he’d hang back for a bit as well. 

It’s been a few minutes of Mark playing single notes on what appears to be a slowed down version of Samson and Donghyuck watching the flames burn, blinking hard when the smoke that blows their way makes his eyes water. 

This moment holds the same weight as that one time Mark took him out for ice cream on a whim all those years ago. Donghyuck knows he has something to say, but this time he doesn’t feel like forcing it out of him. He likes to believe he's grown since then, and has found better ways to poke and prod at Mark, as well as gained a bit more patience and sensibility—not too much, but maybe just enough to let him lean back on his hands and mention the one thing his mind has been going back to all afternoon. "You brought Jane."

Mark's fingers quit playing the ongoing melody and he grins up at him, as if he's been waiting for Donghyuck to notice. _He knows_ , Donghyuck reminds himself, and has to fight against the thrill that runs down his spine.

"I know you like her better," Mark says, rearranging his hands around the guitar and knocking once on her side with a single knuckle, his own version of a caress. "I do, too."

Donghyuck snorts, finding it hard to believe. He hasn't seen him pick Jane over Mery in years, the first one becoming more and more of a decorative piece in his bedroom every passing day. "Your pants are on fire, Mark Lee," he taunts him, which has Mark shaking his head, wind-tousled hair all over the place.

"No, for real. Wanna know why?," he insists, and consecutively points at a scratch near the sound hole. "Mery doesn't have this."

Donghyuck recognizes it right away: it's the scar he left behind after cutting the guitar's strings in half. He lets out a breathy sound, something between a laugh and a scoff, and tries to envision the moment his scissors accidentally dug into the wood and left that mark for them both to reminisce about years later. "I can roughen Mery up too, if that's what you need to get emotionally attached to her," he jokes.

Mark puts a hand to his shoulder and shoves him to the side. When Donghyuck straightens up with a laugh, he scoots closer, pressing Jane’s fretboard to his stomach so he can fit against Mark’s side.

A little girl's playful scream coming from the gathering upfront makes Donghyuck face the bonfire once again and steals his attention, though only partly. He's half aware of the slow shift in Mark's demeanor, who grows quieter as the buzz underneath his skin becomes almost visible, nervous energy overflowing and dripping down his edges. Donghyuck resists the temptation to turn away from the tear-inducing fumes, to sink his nose in the material of Mark's shirt, in the crook of his neck, just to check if he smells like smoke, too.

“So…” Mark ventures, resting both of his elbows on Jane's side. “Jihyun didn’t break up with me.”

The topic is so unforeseeable that Donghyuck takes a moment to process it, making sure that he did indeed hear him name Jihyun, seeing that he could count on the fingers of one hand how many times he's done that since they split up last month, and then does the math. If Jihyun didn't break up with him...

Donghyuck looks away from the bonfire and back at Mark, close enough that his chin grazes his shoulder. “ _You_ broke up with her?” 

Mindlessly plucking a string, Mark nods minutely. Donghyuck registers that, even then, he's playing along to Samson's rhythm. His mind sings _you are my sweetest downfall, I loved you first,_ and a small flicker of hope makes itself known inside of him. 

“Then why did you say she did?,” he asks. He knows Mark knows, but for the first time he wonders if Mark knows Donghyuck knows as well.

“Because I didn’t, you know,” Mark shrugs and falls silent, what he does when he changes his mind and tries to retreat. Donghyuck isn't sure yet if he can actually see where this is heading or if it's merely wishful thinking doing what it does best, so he urges Mark on, a faint desperate edge to his words when he says, “No, I don’t, actually.” 

Mark takes a deep breath. The primitive version of Samson plays on. 

“I didn’t, like, want to tell you why. Because I’m shit at lying and even more when it’s to you and, I don’t know,” he says for a second time. Donghyuck swears he feels himself regress to the kid that was adamant on proving he wasn't a kid, always a second away from blowing up on someone because there was so much piled up inside him. Mark drops the hand that was still playing around with Jane's strings, letting it fall on his lap. He inspects his fingernails, buying himself time, while Donghyuck counts his every blemish, running on expectation.

“I don’t know..." Mark starts cautiously, and then his tongue hurries up on its own, "I don't know what to do if this goes sideways, ‘cause we have another day left here and it’s gonna be _so_ awkward if you don’t like me back.” 

Mark is still not looking at him, picking at his cuticles almost violently. Donghyuck presses even closer, ankle to thigh to hip to arm, and attempts to stare at him with eyes desperate enough that they'll compel Mark to turn his way. 

“Right, yeah. That’s what I—I like you. I’m pretty sure I do," he babbles on, hands fidgeting amongst themselves. Jane digs into Donghyuck's rib cage when he leans forward even further, not having said a word in response yet. Maybe that's what is slowly sending Mark into a frenzy, whose eyes go wide at the same time he adds, “I mean, I’m sure I do, but—Just tell me I’m not imagining things and you like me too."

Donghyuck attempts to let the silence extend until Mark can't bare it anymore, but when that doesn't happen and he's still staring down at his hands, one on Jane and one laid over his leg, Donghyuck sighs and places one of his own on Mark's knee, squeezing it once to make sure he's got his attention. "Look at me?" A moment of hesitation. "Pretty please? With a cherry on top?"

Once Mark does, first raising his head and then his eyes following suit, he finds Donghyuck closer to him than he remembered, leaning his weight on the hand that's on his leg to stay leaning forward. Mouth parted, eyes watery, cheeks going from pink apples to red bones: Mark tells himself it's the smoke's doing, Donghyuck wants to believe it's the desired effect of the smell of the bonfire on Mark's clothes and hair from up close. 

"I've been in love with you since I learned how to say your name," Donghyuck states, using the same tone one would to say two plus two is four. "And I've wanted you since you came back home and lied about not using your Switch."

Mark's mouth takes turns opening and closing, nearly looking out of sorts. He may have known, but he most likely didn't _know,_ Donghyuck guesses.

“That’s… oddly specific," Mark finally responds. Their eyes remain fixed on each other, gazes not parting in fear of missing something, of breaking the moment and not knowing how to put it back together. That doesn't stop either of them from resolving this like they do with about anything else: teasing, a lot of bark and no bite. “Nobody can fall in love when they’re two years old."

“I did,” Donghyuck is quick to protest, leaning in one more time till their shoulders bump together and half of Jane's body slides into Donghyuck's lap, noses a single digit of inches apart. Mark raises his eyebrows in disbelief, challenging him silently. “Dude, I _so_ did. How do you think I put up with you when you got all uptight and confiscated my own toys, or when you pushed the food on my plate so it would touch because you knew it made me cry? You wouldn't be alive and kicking if I hadn’t had a crush on you.”

Mark’s smiling, but Donghyuck can still see his body humming with anxiety, knowing his leg would be bouncing up and down if it wasn’t under Donghyuck’s grounding hold. It’s no surprise, then, when Mark dims his grin down for a moment to say tentatively, "I have… no idea how to do this."

“That makes two of us,” Donghyuck shrugs, appearing completely at ease with it. He remembers Renjun telling him _I think you know as much as Mark does_ , and thinks he finally gets it. 

Mark stays still for a second, and the next he’s leaning forward, bumping their foreheads together, daring to diverge his eyes from Donghyuck’s and glancing down at his mouth. For all the time Donghyuck has wanted this for, there’s something about it that verges on embarrassment, being this close to Mark, who is kind and bright and undeniably easy on the eyes, but who has also seen him naked and throwing up and bawling his eyes out, an entire lifetime of knowing each other under their belts. It feels like he’s somehow corrupting a part of his childhood, and Mark must be feeling it too, because he looks at the space between Donghyuck’s nose and cupid’s bow while he confesses, “I don’t want to screw us up. Again.” 

Donghyuck tests the waters, knocking their noses together and then tilting his head sideways so the tip of his nose barely nudges Mark’s cheek, who remains unmoving all the while. It reeks of awkwardness and vulnerability and Donghyuck doesn’t want it any other way. “I don’t think that’s possible. We could never not be us, you know?” 

Mark makes a noise low in his throat, eyelids falling almost closed when he does his best to take a peek at Donghyuck’s lips from the angle they’re in and fluttering back open to make eye contact once again. It’s cute, and as much as Donghyuck enjoys watching him teeter on the edge of the cliff they’re about to jump off of, he’d much rather they take the plunge. 

“Also, you don’t have to worry,” he starts with, his smile getting bigger by the second, “because I already know I could do better, but better is usually straight or already taken, so I can't really afford to be picky." He pulls a face. "You'll have to make do. I’ve made my peace with it—"

Mark cuts him off, rolling his eyes. "Fuck off."

The hand that’s not on Mark’s knee curls around the collar of his tee. Jane starts to slide off his lap, and there’s a thud when Mark’s elbow comes in contact with her back as he reaches for Donghyuck’s neck, pushing her off them even further. 

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” Donghyuck pouts, feeling Mark’s hand tangle in the baby hairs of his nape, movement doubtful but non-stopping. “If we date I’ll be the settler and you'll be the reacher, so you have to start being nicer to me.”

“Shut up. Seriously, shut up.”

"Make me,” Donghyuck says, not missing a beat nor the opportunity to use his favorite romcom one-liner, hoping it works like it does in all of them. “Maybe this is a Jane situation and you need to roughen me up too, so you can get emotionally attached, and—"

It works.

"Shit, I think there's sand inside of Jane."

Donghyuck pulls his face away from Mark’s t-shirt (He got to test his theory, and all of Mark smells of smoke. It's quite wonderful, honestly) just far enough to look at where Mark’s guitar lays beside them, face down on the beach. He pictures Mark shaking her around to get the sand out of her, and the laugh that escapes him has Mark chuckling silently too. Keeping one ear pressed to his laughter-shaking chest, Donghyuck takes in the remains of the bonfire, now just black wood and shining embers, and the few people left sitting around the massive circle. It’s gone dark now, and he knows their phones are probably packed with texts from their friends asking if they’re joining them any time soon, but Donghyuck is too red in the face to consider looking anyone he knows in the eye, even Mark. Specially him, he thinks, feeling the aforementioned poking him in the low of his back with a single finger, undoubtedly trying to get him to look up at him. 

Donghyuck wasn’t wrong; it was embarrassing, and awkward, and incredibly lovely but beyond flustering. His cheeks heat up again as he recalls parting from Mark’s kiss, opening his eyes and seeing him _there_ , with his dumb grin and rose-tinted skin, and digging his face deep in Mark’s shirt without uttering a word. He can still hear Mark’s burst of laughter, who threw an arm around his back and hugged him closer, body flailing about and managing to shake them both around while he asked, “So _now_ you’re shy?”

After a bit, he had managed to separate Donghyuck from his chest, and had kissed him over and over again, taking hold of the sides of his face and placing his mouth on his when Donghyuck made to duck back down to his hiding spot, up until Mark was a second too slow and Donghyuck got his way one more time. 

Currently, Donghyuck is _mortified_.

“Come on, I’ll treat you to ice cream,” Mark persists, his jabbing finger being joined by the rest of his hand in order to tickle him, striving to get a reaction out of him. 

Donghyuck gives in after a couple seconds, pulling back with a hand on Mark’s sternum and resting his chin on top of it. He can’t blame the smoke of the bonfire anymore for the glint he sees in Mark’s eyes, which grow smaller as his smile gets bigger. 

“Alright, but this doesn’t count as our first date,” Donghyuck negotiates. Mark leans down and pecks him in what he guesses is a gesture of agreement, and he’s dazed for a moment when he realizes this is a thing that happens now, apparently. With a resetting blink, he watches Mark withdraw from his hold to stand up and dust the golden soil of the beach off his clothes, and goes on. “And once we go in one, you have to know I’m the settler, you’re the reacher,” Mark groans, “I’m clingy, I love monthiversaries, I’m probably gonna bite you a lot out of the blue, and I’m afraid I’m never going to stop calling you Minnie.”

Mark extends a hand out to help him up. “Cool. You’re getting mango, right?”

Donghyuck takes it, grabbing Jane before pushing himself to his feet. He bites back a grin when he notices she feels a little heavier, and knows it’s due to the sand that climbed its way in through her sound hole. 

“As always.” He interlaces their fingers and holds the guitar firmly from the base of her neck, taking the first step away from the burnt wood and the seaside, smelling of fire and whatever fabric softener Mark’s mom uses. “You’re also going to have to memorize all my orders.”

“Now you’re pushing it.”

* * *

If you asked Donghyuck how it ends, he’d say: with a mango flavored ice cream that drips down his hand and a stain of mint choco on the corner of Mark’s mouth that he licks clean, with the knowing glance Renjun sends their way over breakfast, with their friends' distant hollers as he pins Mark against a pier piling the last time they go back to the beach, with Mark’s smile on their train ride back when he sees Samson added to the playlist Donghyuck made. 

If you asked Mark how it ends, he’d say it doesn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading until the end! hope you enjoyed ♡  
> also, here's [more markhyuck friends to lovers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29822520) because why not.


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